Rock ‘n Roll Marathon – San Diego removed all of the runners that were reported in the below article from the official marathon results. See the below link for the original article.
ANALYSIS OF RNR SAN DIEGO FINDS SUSPICIOUS RESULTS
Unfair Comparison With Disney
Similar to Disney races, Rock ‘n Roll races attract a lot of casual runners. I recorded a podcast last night where the host compared RnR races to Disney races. There may be an overlap in runners, but my experience with Rock ‘n Roll Marathons has shown that they do take cheating and bib swapping very seriously. Whenever I report any questionable results, they do their due diligence. and adjust the results or disqualify the runner as appropriate.
From this standpoint, they could not be more different than Disney. My experience with Disney (through Trackshack) has been that they don’t care much about cheating.
I still cannot get a reply from anyone at Disney/TrackShack on how a runner with no splits or proof that they were on the course was granted a Boston Qualifying time based on her word. This runner also has been disqualified from 3 other Marathons including a marathon that she previously used to run in Boston. But as far as Disney and Trackshack are concerned, her word is good enough to gift her a BQ time. If she uses that time for Boston, I will push hard to have the BAA question Disney.
Pushing For A Change
While I am against the ‘everyone gets a medal’ mentality, it is up to the race if they want to give everyone a medal – even if they didn’t run the entire race. The race can donate extra medals or encourage participants to do so.
But, I think they need to do away with the policy of allowing runners that get picked up to jump off the Sag Wagon to continue their race. If they want to allow runners to continue on at the back of the pack, at the very least their official policy should be to remove the timing chips prior to allowing a runner to continue their run. I have not received confirmation on how often or how frequently runners get back on the course after riding on the Sag Wagon. But, there have been numerous comments regarding the policy of RnR. They would be well served to modify this particular policy.
These runners are not running Boston Qualifying times. But they also should not get a finishing time without running the 26.2 miles. Giving these runners finishing times could allow them to claim completed marathons for Marathon Maniacs or 50 States Marathon Club that are not earned. I know this is not a concern to some. But within these groups, this is not a small concern.
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Good move RNR!. As far as the sag wagon and everyone gets a medal issues are concerned: they are both open to debate and hopefully RNR will heed the advice given and remove timing chips once someone gets into the van. That would clear this thing up. Frankly, if they want to give ALL a medal even those that get in the wagon, go nuts (as long as they are DQ’d) If someone wants one so bad, I really don’t care. It’s not the medal for me; it’s the official time that is recorded that is a sign of achievement but some may disagree. thanks..Keep up the great work.
I “ran” SD RnR last year (2016) and was the.last.one that didn’t get picked up by the SAG wagon. I was finishing all 26.2 of those miles. I saw the lagging people get picked up and driven to the top of the last ugly climb and then get dropped off and finish. While I joked about how nice that would have been, I never could have lived with myself.
I never should have done the race. It was my 3rd marathon and I wasn’t recovered from a knee injury. I slogged through all those miles so I could wear my jacket with well..not pride, but at least not shame.
No excuse for cheating.
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